Carpe diem.

Horace
Preface

Why should anybody still use celestial navigation in the era of electronics and GPS? You might as well ask why some
people still develop black and white photos in their darkroom instead of using a high-color digital camera and image
processing software. The answer would be the same: because it is a noble art, and because it is fun. Reading a GPS
display is easy and not very exciting as soon as you have got used to it. Celestial navigation, however, will always be a
challenge because each scenario is different. Finding your geographic position by means of astronomical observations
requires knowledge, judgement, and the ability to handle delicate instruments. In other words, you play an active part
during the whole process, and you have to use your brains. Everyone who ever reduced a sight knows the thrill I am
talking about. The way is the goal.
It took centuries and generations of navigators, astronomers, geographers, mathematicians, and instrument makers to
develop the art and science of celestial navigation to its present state, and the knowledge thus accumulated is too
precious to be forgotten. After all, celestial navigation will always be a valuable alternative if a GPS receiver happens to
fail.
Years ago, when I read my first book on navigation, the chapter on celestial navigation with its fascinating diagrams and
formulas immediately caught my particular interest although I was a little deterred by its complexity at first. As I became
more advanced, I realized that celestial navigation is not as difficult as it seems to be at first glance. Further, I found that
many publications on this subject, although packed with information, are more confusing than enlightening, probably
because most of them have been written by experts and for experts.
I decided to write something like a compact guide-book for my personal use which had to include operating instructions
as well as all important formulas and diagrams. The idea to publish it came in 1997 when I became interested in the
internet and found that it is the ideal medium to share one's knowledge with others. I took my manuscript, rewrote it in
the form of a structured manual, and redesigned the layout to make it more attractive to the public. After converting
everything to the HTML format, I published it on my web site. Since then, I have revised text and graphic images
several times and added a couple of new chapters. People seem to like it, at least I get approving e-mails now and then.

Following the recent trend, I decided to convert the manual to the PDF format, which has become an established
standard for internet publishing. In contrast to HTML documents, the page-oriented PDF documents retain their layout
when printed. The HTML version is no longer available since keeping two versions in different formats synchronized
was too much work. In my opinion, a printed manual is more useful anyway.

Since people keep asking me how I wrote the documents and how I created the graphic images, a short description of
the procedure and software used is given below:

Drawings and diagrams were made with good old CorelDraw! 3.0 and exported as GIF files.

The manual was designed and written with Star Office. The Star Office (.sdw) documents were then converted to
Postscript (.ps) files with the AdobePS printer driver (available at www.adobe.com). Finally, the Postscript files were
converted to PDF files with GsView and Ghostscript (www.ghostscript.com).

I apologize for misspellings, grammar errors, and wrong punctuation. I did my best, but after all, English is not my
native language.
I hope the new version will find as many readers as the old one. Hints and suggestions are always welcome. Since I am
very busy, I may not always be able to answer incoming e-mails immediately. Be patient.
Last but not least, I owe my wife an apology for spending countless hours in front of the PC, staying up late, neglecting
household chores, etc. I'll try to mend my ways. Some day ...

May 24, 2001

Henning Umland

Correspondence address:

Dr. Henning Umland

Rabenhorst 6
21244 Buchholz i. d. N.
Germany

Fax +49 89 2443 66455

E-mail h.umland@online.de